US says DRC must hold long-delayed election by end of 2018

Africa

Saturday 28 October 2017 - 8:35am

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and President of Congo's electoral commission (CENI) Corneille Nangaa (C) addresses the media at the CENI headquarters in Gombe, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, October 27, 2017.
Photo: REUTERS/Robert Carrubba

KINSHASA - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) must hold a long-delayed election to replace President Joseph Kabila by the end of next year or the vote will lose international support, the US ambassador to the United Nations said on Friday.

Repeated delays to the poll, originally scheduled for late 2016, have led to unrest and raised fears the central African nation could slip back into the kind of conflicts that killed millions around the turn of the century.

"It was a firm, candid conversation," Haley told a small group of reporters, adding she had "made very clear that the United States wanted to see elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018 and we wouldn't accept elections any later".

"A relationship with the United States is dependent on how he acts going forward," she said. "He has the ability to either support that or not support that, but we have the ability to make our decisions based on that."

Dozens died in protests against Kabila's refusal to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last December. The resulting political crisis has also contributed to rising militia violence in Congo's east and centre.

Kabila, who has ruled Congo since his father's assassination in 2001, said the election delays are due to challenges registering millions of voters.

However, his opponents accuse him of using the delay to manoeuvre to remove term limits that prevent him from standing for re-election, as presidents in neighbouring Rwanda and Congo have done. He denies those charges.

Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said the government hoped to see the election as soon as possible but that it was up to the electoral commission to set the date.

"It's not up to the government, nor to Ms Haley to organise the elections," Mende said. "I don't think that we can be subjected to these kinds of diktats."

International donors have said they are prepared to provide significant funding to elections but are waiting for a realistic calendar from CENI.

So far, they have contributed only six percent of the $123-million (R1.73-billion) that the United Nations is expecting, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo said earlier this month.